Serment d’allégeance: C’est le capitalisme, imbécile! (The Pledge was just an ad to sell magazines)

Plusieurs milliers d’Israéliens juifs et arabes ont manifesté hier soir aux cris de « non au fascisme oui à la démocratie » contre un projet de loi controversé exigeant des candidats à la citoyenneté qu’ils prêtent allégeance à « Israël, Etat juif et démocratique ». Le Figaro

Le credo « Multikulti », « nous vivons maintenant côte à côte et nous nous en réjouissons » a échoué, totalement échoué (…) nous n’avons pas besoin d’une immigration qui pèse sur notre système social. Angela Merkel

Le fait, au cours d’une manifestation organisée ou réglementée par les autorités publiques, d’outrager publiquement l’hymne national ou le drapeau tricolore est puni de 7 500 euros d’amende. Lorsqu’il est commis en réunion, cet outrage est puni de six mois d’emprisonnement et de 7 500 euros d’amende. Code pénal francais (Article 433-5-1, Loi n°2003-239 du 18 mars 2003)

Le Gouvernement peut s’opposer par décret en Conseil d’Etat, pour indignité ou défaut d’assimilation, autre que linguistique, à l’acquisition de la nationalité française par le conjoint étranger dans un délai de deux ans à compter de la date du récépissé prévu au deuxième alinéa de l’article 26 ou, si l’enregistrement a été refusé, à compter du jour où la décision judiciaire admettant la régularité de la déclaration est passée en force de chose jugée. La situation effective de polygamie du conjoint étranger ou la condamnation prononcée à son encontre au titre de l’infraction définie à l’article 222-9 du code pénal, lorsque celle-ci a été commise sur un mineur de quinze ans, sont constitutives du défaut d’assimilation. En cas d’opposition du Gouvernement, l’intéressé est réputé n’avoir jamais acquis la nationalité française. Code civil francais (Article 21-4, modifié par Loi n°2006-911 du 24 juillet 2006)

It began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history, from the Declaration of Independence onwards; with the makings of the Constitution… with the meaning of the Civil War; with the aspiration of the people…

The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the ‘republic for which it stands’. …And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation – the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. And its future? Just here arose the temptation of the historic slogan of the French Revolution which meant so much to Jefferson and his friends, ‘Liberty, equality, fraternity’. No, that would be too fanciful, too many thousands of years off in realization. But we as a nation do stand square on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all… Francis Bellamy

…I would suggest that such practices as the designation of « In God We Trust » as our national motto, or the references to God contained in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag can best be understood, in Dean Rostow’s apt phrase, as a form a « ceremonial deism, » protected from Establishment Clause scrutiny chiefly because they have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content. Justice Brennan

There are no de minimis violations of the Constitution – no constitutional harms so slight that the courts are obliged to ignore them. Given the values that the Establishment Clause was meant to serve, however, I believe that government can, in a discrete category of cases, acknowledge or refer to the divine without offending the Constitution. This category of « ceremonial deism » most clearly encompasses such things as the national motto (« In God We Trust »), religious references in traditional patriotic songs such as The Star-Spangled Banner, and the words with which the Marshal of this Court opens each of its sessions (« God save the United States and this honorable Court »). These references are not minor trespasses upon the Establishment Clause to which I turn a blind eye. Instead, their history, character, and context prevent them from being constitutional violations at all. Justice O’Connor

No Pasaran!

Alors que dans un pays qui continue obstinement a refuser de décreter sa propre disparition, on manifeste aux cris de « Non au fascisme » contre un serment d’allégeance a l’Etat juif …

Et qu’en pleine crise financiere et economique, une chanceliere allemande dénonce l’échec du multiculturalisme …

Pendant que dans la Patrie autoproclamée des droits de l’homme qui siffle ses hymne national et drapeau mais se réserve le droit de déchéance de nationalité, on se bricole, entre une obligation pour les nouveaux arrivés de s’engager par écrit comme au Quebec a accepter les valeurs de la République et un projet de rétablissement du serment politique pour le président, son petit code patriotique …

Voici que l’on découvre, dans le pays meme qui avat inventé le déisme cérémoniel, que le fameux serment d’allégeance au drapeau ne serait, de la part d’un pasteur remercié pour cause de dérive socialisante, qu’une vulgaire pub pour vendre des magazines …

The Pledge of Allegiance was just an ad to sell magazines

Twin Cities Daily Planet

Grace Kelly, MN Progressive Project

June 05, 2010

Mike Bellamy teaches English literature and rhetoric at the University of St. Thomas, while also directing an English Master’s Program. Francis Bellamy, who wrote the Pledge of Alllegiance, is the first cousin of Mike’s great-grandfather. Mike Bellamy’s research reveals the following:

The pledge was written by a socialist! Francis Bellamy was a Christian Socialist. As a Baptist minister, Francis got into trouble by trying to insert « social justice » into Christianity. The parish effectively fired him by cutting his salary drastically so that he had to find a different job.

The pledge was an ad campaign to sell magazines in 1892!

Whatever else the « Pledge » has accomplished since then, the flag campaign that made it famous coincided with a huge increase in The Youth’s Companion’s circulation, something like a 50% increase, from about 4000,000, that is, to over 600,000.

The pledge was designed as the beginning of a civil religion, bringing the strength of religious belief into « patriotism ».

Most obvious was the need to acculturate, or « naturalize » as the odd term has it, a teeming influx of immigrants. Their usefulness as immigrant « operatives » who worked in America’s factories did little to ally the uneasiness of nativist sentiment.  It was felt that these great unwashed, especially the more swarthy Eastern and Southern European ones, who « inherit no love for our country, » as Margaret Miller puts it in her history of the « Pledge, » had to be imbued with a « thoroughly American feeling » .

Mike Bellamy gave me permission to publish this:

The Last Page

Many people have been distressed by post-9/11 advertising that confuses patriotism with consumerism. But using the flag to sell things is an old tradition — older than desecration laws that were enacted to criminalize this sort of behavior at the beginning of the last century.

Recently, I came across an earlier, noteworthy conflation of patriotic symbolism with greed. In this case it concerned The Pledge of Allegiance. I learned about this confusion inadvertently researching the life of my great-grandfather, Edward Bellamy, the author of Looking Backward. Edward’s first cousin, Francis Bellamy, briefly became a socialist after reading this celebrated political novel. Francis also wrote the Pledge of Allegiance.

Francis’s stint as a Christian Socialist was enthusiastic, if brief. So too was his tenure as a Baptist Minister. Exploring his life, I was hardly on the lookout for the now only-too-familiar tendency to conflate capitalism with Americanism. Though he did deliver his « Jesus was a Socialist » talk shortly before he wrote the Pledge, Francis played a role in this confusion. It may well be that his turn from socialism to reactionary politics was a reaction to his congregation’s resistance to his left-wing ideas. He preached to them relentlessly about Christian obligations to the poor. They grew weary and fired him. He then quit the ministry altogether.

Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge the next year. It was the byproduct of a scheme to sell flags to public schools hatched by Francis’s employer. The Youth’s Companion was the best-selling American magazine of the time. The idea was to synchronize simultaneous flag-raisings over the nation’s schoolhouses on Columbus Day in 1892 (the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the New World). These celebrations were to coincide with the opening of the Chicago World’s Fair. For the occasion, the magazine published an elaborate ceremony, written mostly by Bellamy, which included the Pledge.

Over 26,000 flags were sold at cost — or so said The Youth’s Companion. The surrounding campaign certainly enhanced the magazine’s considerable prestige and helped boost its circulation by 50 percent. A variety of pseudo-events were orchestrated by Bellamy, the project manager. These included a Presidential Proclamation, interviews with Congressmen, and boiler-plate editorials distributed to newspapers across the nation. The Pledge attained its canonical status through this media blitz. Nothing of its scope had ever occurred before.

After its appearance, the Pledge has been surrounded by issues of ownership. Years after he wrote it, Francis discovered — thanks to hearing a quiz show on the radio — that the Companion attributed authorship of the Pledge to Bellamy’s deceased boss, unlike Bellamy, a long-time company man at the magazine. Years of depositions, recriminations, and character assassinations ensued. Congress itself finally vindicated Francis, although this didn’t prevent the later publication of a book-length polemic challenging his authorship.

In the meantime, Francis’s politics kept drifting rightward, much like the conservative uses to which the Pledge has since been put. In the xenophobic 1920s he devised « A Plan for a Counterattack on the Nation’s Internal Foes: How to Mobilize the Masses to Support Primary American Doctrines. » This proposal aimed to harness the Pledge to a campaign against « traitors. » For Francis, « traitors » included immigrants, Wobblies, and union members. The proposal was never published (though the desire to use the Pledge to purge has endured).

As I followed Francis Bellamy’s rightward drift, it occurred to me that his eventual identification of Americanism with capitalism was already implicit in the flag-and-pledge campaign. The Companion sent students across the country 100 « free shares » in « the influence of the flag. »  They, in turn, were to raise money to buy their school flags by selling these shares to classmates at 10 cents a share. Though the official theme of the Colombus Day extravaganza was the Enlightenment — manifested, in the inadvertent discovery of the New World and by the establishment of America’s « free » (tax-supported) schools — the flag-and-pledge caper actually equated citizenship with capitalism, and stake-holding with holding stock. Old Glory wasn’t a sacred symbol of the nation’s indivisible unity, but a commodifiable object like any other. In short, commercialized patriotism has been with us for some time, shock sensibilities about the recent unseemly commercialism notwithstanding.

— Michael Bellamy

Let me know if you like this, since Mike Bellamy has given me permission to publish an even longer piece with even better tidbits. History is facinating!

Voir aussi:

National School Celebration of Columbus Day: The Official Programme

(Prepared by Executive Committee, Francis Bellamy, Chairman)

The schools should assemble at 9 A.M. in their various rooms. At 9:30 the detail of Veterans is expected to arrive. It is to be met at the entrance of the yard by the Color-Guard of pupils,—escorted with dignity to the building, and presented to the Principal. The Principal then gives the signal, and the several teachers conduct their students to the yard, to beat of drum or other music, and arrange them in a hollow square about the flag, the Veterans and Color-Guard taking places by the flag itself. The Master of Ceremonies then gives the command “Attention!” and begins the exercises by reading the Proclamation.

1. READING OF THE PRESIDENT’S PROCLAMATION—by the Master of Ceremonies

At the close of the reading he announces, “In accordance with this recommendation by the President of the United States, and as a sign of our devotion to our country, let the Flag of the Nation be unfurled above this School.”

2. RAISING OF THE FLAG—by the Veterans

As the Flag reaches the top of the staff, the Veterans will lead the assemblage in “Three Cheers for ‘Old Glory.’ ”

3. SALUTE TO THE FLAG—by the Pupils

At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military salute—right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side. Then, still standing, as the instruments strike a chord, all will sing AMERICA—“My Country, ’tis of Thee.”

4. ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD—Prayer or Scripture

5. SONG OF COLUMBUS DAY—by Pupils and Audience

Contributed by The Youth’s Companion Air: Lyons

Columbia, my land! All hail the glad day

When first to thy strand Hope pointed the way.

Hail him who thro’ darkness first followed the Flame

That led where the Mayflower of Liberty came.

Dear Country, the star of the valiant and free!

Thy exiles afar are dreaming of thee.

No fields of the Earth so enchantingly shine,

No air breathes such incense, such music as thine.

Humanity’s home! Thy sheltering breast

Give welcome and room to strangers oppress’d.

Pale children of Hunger and Hatred and Wrong

Find life in thy freedom and joy in thy song.

Thy fairest estate the lowly may hold,

Thy poor may grow great, thy feeble grow bold

For worth is the watchword to noble degree,

And manhood is mighty where manhood is free.

O Union of States, and union of souls!

Thy promise awaits, thy future unfolds,

And earth from her twilight is hailing the sun,

That rises where people and rulers are one.

Theron Brown

6. THE ADDRESS

“The Meaning of the Four Centuries” A Declamation of the Special Address prepared for the occasion by The Youth’s Companion.

7. THE ODE

“Columbia’s Banner,” A Reading of the Poem written for the Occasion by Edna Dean Proctor.

Here should follow whatever additional Exercises, Patriotic Recitations, Historic Representations, or Chorals may be desired.

8. ADDRESSES BY CITIZENS, and National Songs.

Source: The Youth’s Companion, 65 (1892): 446–447. Reprinted in Scot M. Guenter, The American Flag, 1777–1924: Cultural Shifts (Cranbury, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 1990).